Useful Searches

Welcome to PlowSite. Notice a fresh look and new features? It’s now easier to share photos and videos, find popular topics fast, and enjoy expanded user profiles. If you have any questions, click HELP at the top or bottom of any page, or send an email to help@plowsite.com. We welcome your feedback.

Contracts?

This is going to sound unprofessional to most people, but i need your help.

I live in a smaller town in ne ohio, everybody is somewhat friendly, off the top of my head i can tell you all 32 of my commercial accounts and the owner/contact person. Some are landscaping customers, and some are just snow removal customers. I only have one signed contract, per the companys request. Everyother account i have is based on trust.

I would like to change this, but fear my customers, mainly new ones, would shy away from a "contract" I have never been stiffed, but know it is only a matter of time.

we run our business the same way buddy.......handshake. been in roofing business for 11 years and only been fuckked about four times, out of over 1000 roofs. a SIGNED contract would not have done any good. i just take them to small claims court...worked every time but once, and even then a signed contract in blood wouldn't mean jack to this sleeze ball (too many judgements and no $$$$) only $1500 out of about 3million not collected.

It has worked so far, why change now? I would just like to look more professional. For a small town guy i do pretty good business, on that handshake.

There are a lot of guys with crap plows and junk trucks that plow for beer money, and they are hard to bid against, but it seems everybody has been f ' ed over by" this "guy. Guess i shouldn't change what works.

I would not plow anything without a contract! Sure if a guy wants to screw you out of money, you will have to take him to small claims court. But if you have an agreement to plow a lot for the season and you stop servicing the property due to lack of payment and there is a slip and fall guess who's going to be held responsible?

Our contracts started out on one page they are now three pages. The first part is the payment terms the second is what we will be doing on a property and the third is the indemnification clauses. It seems like a lot of work but when your looking at a $24,000
slip and fall case it's nice to have that signed contract to back it up.

That slip and fall happened 5 days after a snow event, there was a gutter off of the roof that created a ice patch next to a gutter. The individual decided to take a short cut in high heels and fell.